There are several ways one can harness natural energy. In addition to the sun, wind, tides, and geothermal activities, the human body itself is increasingly being used to produce energy charge all sorts of electricity-hungry devices.

Music company Orange and GotWind , a firm specializing in renewable energy, have teamed up to create a device called the Dance Charge. Weighing 180 grams , you strap it around your arm. Dance Charge then uses the kinetic energy generated by your body in motion to juice up your phone.

It also uses a system of weights and magnets to produce electric current to top up the storage battery, which can later be used to charge your handset. A prototype of the device will be shown and tested at this year's Glastonbury Festival .

A link to Amazon.com's MP3 store appears for the song used as the soundtrack for the latest "Where the hell is Matt?" video. Click image for a larger version.

Love that song in the latest " Where the hell is Matt? " video but have no idea what the hell it is? Wonder no more. Now YouTube will make it easier to identify songs and buy them instantly.

Google, which owns the video-sharing site, is adding "click to buy" links to thousands of video pages of YouTube partners, the company announced on its corporate blog Tuesday afternoon.

The idea is to make it easy for people to buy an MP3 or video game with the click of a mouse. The links appear just below the toolbox underneath a video, and link directly to the Amazon MP3 page or iTunes Store where people can buy the song. For video game trailers, YouTube will add links to buy the game from Amazon.

For those not interested in buying, the links will at least allow people to find out the name of an artist and title of a song playing as the soundtrack of a video they're watching.

For now, the service is only available to people in the U.S. And the only music company specifically mentioned in the announcement was EMI. But Google said this is just the beginning of a much larger project that will likely expand to include many more content partners and serve an international audience.

A hundred years ago, you had to be a well-heeled gentleman at an upscale house of ill repute to see naughty films. Nowadays, of course, adult viewers can watch in the leisurely setting of their own homes--and it doesn't require any special equipment other than whatever they'd use to see Pirates of the Caribbean or Finding Nemo .

Indeed, everyone from the talent to the producers to the equipment makers interviewed as part of CNET's ongoing coverage of the race between HD DVD and Blu-ray agrees that the viewing public will be the ultimate decider whether HD DVD or Blu-ray will become ubiquitous in the U.S. and worldwide.

CNET TV's series of videos outlines the adult film industry's influence on these technologies.

In the U.S. alone, pornography is a $12 billion industry, with a sizeable--and spendy--constituency. But for some reason, as one producer laments, "No one will embrace our industry."

According to CNET's interviews, big studios like Disney routinely require their DVD manufacturers to sign a contract that essentially forbids them from working with porn studios. Since many of these adult studios are privately held, very small operations, the industry remains flexible and nimble enough to work around these challenges.

Having failed to buy all of Yahoo , or even its search business, Microsoft is now looking to take an even more piecemeal approach--hire its workers.

Hmmm. Now who could Microsoft be targeting here?

The company took out an ad in the San Jose Mercury News touting the fact that it has search jobs available in Silicon Valley.

"There are now very few companies that remain truly committed to defining the future of search and online advertising," the ad reads. "Microsoft is one of them."

Microsoft's not-so-subtle dig at Yahoo is particularly well-timed amid rumors that Yahoo is in a hiring freeze , or at least a cold chill and amid a rash of high-level defections .

In the ad, Microsoft touts its partnerships with Facebook, Viacom, and Dow Jones and suggests the fun of chasing Google.

"We have a long way to go," the ad states. "It will be an exciting
journey. Come join us. We have jobs in Mountain View, Redmond, and around the world."

I'll be curious to see how the hiring push pays off. On the one hand, it would seem like for a whole lot less than $40 billion, Microsoft should be able to go on a pretty significant hiring spree. At the same time, I've heard of a lot of people leaving Yahoo, but haven't heard of any big names joining Microsoft.

Cox is the latest Internet service provider to have been found blocking peer-to-peer traffic on its network.

The Max Planck Institute for Software Systems released a survey Thursday showing that 54 percent of Cox subscribers reported having their connections blocked when they tried to share files over the Internet. Comcast has been castigated for a similar practice , but apparently it wasn't the only company engaging in such action, according to the Associated Press .

The blocked connections occurred when Cox subscribers used BitTorrent to download or upload files , according to the results of the survey. Cox has acknowledged a practice called "protocol filtering," but says that's not the equivalent of creating different standards for handling content traveling across its networks.

The survey results will provide another log for the fire started by Net neutrality activists pushing for rules that would prohibit ISPs from enacting different standards for different types of content. The AP said the Federal Communications Commission would look into the matter "expeditiously."

Imagine a digital camera that could make people in your photos more attractive.

Tommer Leyvand, a researcher at Tel Aviv University in Israel, has done just that. Leyvand has developed a new algorithm that can improve the looks of human faces in photos so they appear as better versions of themselves, according to a report from New Scientist .

The technology, called a "digital beautification" algorithm, apparently makes tiny adjustments to the distances between hundreds of different facial features, according to the report. That way, it can alter the person's appearance only subtly in a matter of minutes.

Leyvand combined the software with ratings on attractiveness from volunteers, to form a set of rules called "beauty function," which ultimately determine what is good-looking and what is not, according to the story.

Initial tests have proved promising. According to the report, Leyvand showed before-and-after pictures to 40 people, and the majority of them said the software improved the person's looks.

SAN FRANCISCO--Google demonstrated some new tricks of its Android mobile phone software , including an elaborate use of Google Maps Street View and a touch-screen interface with abilities known for their presence on Apple's iPhone.

Google Street View panned left and right as the Android phone user turned around. Click on the image above for an Android slide show.

Steve Horowitz, Android's engineering director, used flicking gestures to sweep from the phone's home screen to another during a speech here Wednesday at the Google I/O conference . More unusual, though was a demonstration of how the phone's internal compass and accelerometer can enliven Street View.

After calling up a view of San Francisco using a Web browser, Horowitz turned around, and the Street View screen panned left or right accordingly, reflecting his orientation.

Also new were demonstrations of a central notification service that can display new e-mail, missed phone calls, and calendar appointments; the ability to unlock the phone using a specific connect-the-dots swipe across the screen; an option to put browser or contact list shortcuts on the Android desktop; and a version of Pac-Man from Namco.

Android consists of a Linux kernel with Java virtual machine technology on top for running software. Google supplies many applications, but it's trying to encourage developers to write their own. Google hopes Android will become an open system on which users can install whatever software they want, though it's not yet clear if phone service carriers will agree with that vision.

Although Android supported the touch screen, there was no support yet for multitouch, which permits two-finger controls such as pinching to shrink a photo. However, Android could accommodate that technology if handset makers use multitouch-capable screens, said Andy Rubin, the Android project leader, in a press meeting after the speech.

"When a hardware developer puts that hardware into the handset, I hope that hardware developer provides the driver," Rubin said.

A view of Google's Android mobile-phone software.

Android can use a touch screen, but doesn't need one, Rubin added. "Steve could have given that entire demo driven by a trackball," Rubin said.

Rubin wouldn't be pinned down about when Android phones will ship, only reiterating the commitment to meet a deadline of the second half of 2008. "What you saw onstage looks pretty good, but we want to make sure it's perfect," Rubin said.

In the demo, Android ran on a UMTS phone from an unnamed manufacturer, Rubin said. It used a Qualcomm MDM 7201A processor, a Synaptics capacitive touch screen, and a 3.6 megabit-per-second HSDPA broadband connection.